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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
LOCAL and international triathletes will once again converge in Nyanga for the 2017 Bonaqua Troutbeck ATU Triathlon African Cup and the Zimbabwe National Championships this weekend.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the annual event as sanctioned by the International Triathlon Union as an African Cup, which is a points-scoring event for elite athletes within the ITU ranking system. For local athletes, this event will also be the national championships and all action will take place at Troutbeck Resort on Saturday.

Fourteen men and women had registered for the elite event by yesterday.

Among them is Turkey’s Jonas Schomburg and Cindy Schwulst from South Africa. They both took part in the 2016 edition in the men and women’s event respectively. To allow for late entries, the official elite start list will only be made available tomorrow afternoon.

Triathlon Zimbabwe president Rick Fulton yesterday said it’s an open race for anyone to win since most of the participants that have entered are upcoming.

“From an elite perspective, this is really anybody’s race, both on the men and women’s side because all of these athletes are young and up-and-coming on the international scene.

“Now it’s the beginning of another Olympic cycle, a four-year cycle. So these athletes are all trying to make their mark so that they possibly can get further funding from their national federations.

“So we really don’t know too much about a lot of their performances. But we do know that there is no clear cut winner like we had sometimes in the past. This year it’s very difficult for us to actually call a winner, so I think it will be a good open race for both the men and the women,” said Fulton.

Ayan Beisenbayev from Kazakhstan and Mauritius’ Fabienne St Louis are the winners from last year but they were not among those that had entered for the event by yesterday.

Fulton said with a hilly course at altitude, different from some of the international courses, participants should brace up for a tough event.

“I think it’s a bit of a level, it’s not like a lot of the international courses which are very flat, which favours the faster runners because they can speed up in the pack on the bike and then come through on the run.”